Something quite depressing is if we (HN crowd) find workarounds, most regular folks won't have the budget/expertise to do so, so citizen journalism will have been successfully muted by government / big media.
I grew up in a pretty deprived area of the UK, and we all knew "a guy" who could get you access to free cable, or shim your electric line to bypass the meter, or get you pirated CD's and VHS' and whatever.
There will always be "that guy down the pub" selling raspberry pi's with some deranged outdated firmware that runs a proxy for everything in the house or whatever. To be honest with you, I might end up being that guy for a bunch of people once I'm laid off from tech like the rest. :)
You should be worried. Don't underestimate the capabilities of the government bureaucrats. That "guys down the pub" will quickly disappear once they start getting jail time for their activities.
Somehow, things that could be unifying protests where the working class of every political stripe are able to overlook their differences and push back against government never seem to happen. It is always polarized so that it's only ever one side at a time, and the other side is against them. How does that work?
They cannot enforce laws against such "petty" crimes, the reason society mostly functions in the UK is because most people don't try to break the law.
Pretty sure the local punters would kick the cops out if they came for one of their own, especially if he got them their porn back.
So as soon as Labour comes out for something, Cons are inclined to be against it and so on. The only way to have neutral protests is if no one visibly backs them and they don't become associated with a side, but then how do they get support and organization?
There is no need for special efforts to enforce the law. Put a few people in jail - and everyone else will quickly find safer and more legal ways to spend their time. No one will do something like that unless they are confident of their impunity.
It will only work if they admit that they supported this and all forms of totalitarianism during COVID. You can't fall for that and then be surprised when the world keeps going down that obvious path.
The problem with covid is that we weren't totalitarian enough. Regulations you could drive a coach & horses through and no way to enforce is a sop.
The first lock down needed to be a proper 'papers, please' affair. When we get a properly lethal pandemic, we're fucked. Hopefully Laurence Fox and Piers Corbyn will catch it quickly and expire in a painful and televised way, it's the only hope of people complying with actual quarantine measures.
What makes you think, if the Gov was to implement some sophisticated DPI firewall that blocks a million different things, they won't come after the people who circumvent it? They already enforce petty crimes. I could report you for causing me anxiety and you would have a copper show up at your door.
No, they aren't interested in enforcing laws against petty crimes. The establishment literally don't give a toss if someone breaks into your house and nicks your telly.
They are very interested in enforcing the kinds of infringements we're talking about here.
And COVID was not "totalitarian enough"? Yet people were forbidden from leaving their homes for a time.
It was really amazing what fear could do to a population, how it rallied mostly together.
You're the kind of person that said that "measures didn't work because we didn't close hard enough, if we do 2 weeks of REAL lockdown...". It's ridiculous. You have absolutely no perspective of how the world work and how things break, people need health, food, working pipes.
You have an absolutely authoritarian mindset and an inability to asses risk. You also have deep contempt for your fellow human being who are "not deserving of democracy".
Lastly, it's funny to hear you admit this pandemic wasn't lethal because people don't actually comply the way you want, which means that the actions were theater and unneeded.
Individually, the people of the UK are generally kind, thoughtful and considerate. As a mob, they're an absolute nightmare especially when wankers like Fox and Corbyn get involved.
Anyone who thinks otherwise has never had to tell people 'no'.
>Lastly, it's funny to hear you admit this pandemic wasn't lethal because people don't actually comply the way you want, which means that the actions were theater and unneeded
This pandemic was lethal, but it wasn't bubonic plague lethal. When we get something that cuts like a knife through hot butter, you'll soon be holed up inside screaming at strangers through the letterbox.
Sometimes I think about that: vax aside, they actually managed to provision trusted certificates for a huge percentage of the population in a short period of time. Could have actually been useful for online ID, though we know of the dangers there; but look, here I am signing into my government's website using my bank as a 3rd party IDP. Shouldn't I sign into the bank using the gov't instead??
This is true everywhere, mobs devolve us to primate behaviour; if you've been in a crowd that ever got angry, you know this - it drives the hindbrain in amazing and terrifying ways. Happy crowds can give you elation you'll never feel anywhere else; angry crowds can make a man kill, even though normally he'd never dream of it.
Of course, most countries don't need to have Anti-Social Behavioural Orders or ban people from buying butter knives, so there's something else going on in the UK that is a bit harder to put a finger on.